AI Sports Hardware Company PongBot Closes Several Hundred Million Yuan Series B Funding
According to the official WeChat account of Shanghai Guotou Xiandao Fund, Shanghai-based AI sports hardware company PongBot announced the completion of a Series B funding round valued at several hundred million CNY.
This round was led by Shanghai Guotou Xiandao Fund, with participation from Yuanhe PuHua, Pudong Venture Capital and other institutions, while existing shareholder BlueRun Ventures continued to increase its investment. Previously, the company had completed three consecutive Series A rounds, with leading institutions including Shenqi Capital, Mingshi Venture Capital, BlueRun Ventures, Jinqiu Fund, China Venture Capital and Chengwei Capital all participating collectively.
PongBot was founded in 2019 and is part of Shanghai Chuangyi Technology Co., Ltd. Founder and CEO Zhang Haibo holds a master's degree in computer vision and previously worked at SIASUN, where he held positions including engineer, project manager and department head. He has more than ten years of experience in sports training robot R&D and once led the development of a national-team-level table tennis rallying robot.
Above: PongBot founder Zhang Haibo
The company initially entered the market through table tennis and later expanded into tennis. Table tennis and tennis are currently its core categories, and it plans to expand into badminton, pickleball, padel and more in the future.
At present, PongBot has more than 300,000 users worldwide, with cumulative ball deliveries exceeding 2 billion and more than 1 million sets of ball trajectory data accumulated.
In May this year, PongBot launched Aura, the world's first multi-sport AI coaching robot. It surpassed US$1 million in crowdfunding just 5 hours after launching on the overseas crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, with cumulative funding exceeding US$4 million.
PongBot Aura enables a single machine to support training for net-based sports including tennis, pickleball and padel, and can adapt to the personalized training needs of players at different levels. It weighs 7 kg and combines portability with performance.
Above: the Aura robot, priced from 3,999 yuan on Tmall
At the end of September, at the Australian Open 2027 season launch event, PongBot announced it had become an official partner of the Australian Open and its official ball-serving robot partner, while also serving as the official ball-serving robot supplier to Australian National Tennis Academy.
The funds from this round will be focused on three areas:
- Continuing to increase R&D investment in core technologies such as AI sports large models, sports vision and training decision-making, further enhancing AI coaching capabilities;
- Accelerating global market and brand building, strengthening overseas channels, localized operations and brand influence;
- Advancing the R&D and launch of more sports categories and new products. As its core products and commercialization path gain market validation, the company is transitioning from the early phase of product and category expansion to a new phase focused on building long‑term platform capabilities.
丨Source: Shanghai Guotou Xiandao Fund and PongBot official WeChat account
丨Image source: PongBot official WeChat account